Processing: Images were captured in Artemis Capture (as FITs). Aligned/stacked in Registax
3 and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were numerically scaled and
color balanced in
Astroart. Channels were co-registered in Astroart. Central gradient was
removed in Astroart. Curves and Levels applied in
Photoshop to optimize object features. Final LRGB combine was done in Photoshop using Luminance Layering (or
LLRGB). This image incorporates some high resolution image data from
narrow field images of M81 and M82. Those images were aligned into this wide
field image as layers and then merged. SGBNR was used to smooth
background noise on the luminance construction and the final result.
Final Image size is approximately 1392x1040.

North
is up in this image. The image was guided for all exposures. M81 is the
central larger galaxy and M82 is the edge on galaxy toward the top of the image. The
small galaxy in the lower left is NGC 3077. Close up exposures incorporated into
this image are here for M81 and M82
. Horizontal FOV is 122'